Now that we have been in the house for 10 months, we thought it was time to post our monthly power bills:
July 2009 $55
Aug 2009 $52
Sept 2009 $42
Oct 2009 $63
Nov 2009 $90
Dec 2009 $123
Jan 2010 $98
Feb 2010 $90
Mar 2010 $61
Apr 2010 $46
As you can see, we’ve been able to keep the bills pretty low. To contextualize these bills, it is helpful to know what draws electricity in the home:
- geothermal HVAC
- washer
- dryer (only when it is not sunny)
- dishwasher
- water heater (only when it is cloudy and the solar thermal is not working)
- disposal
- pumps for the rainwater collection system
- household appliances (hair dryer, toaster, water kettle, computers, TV)
- ceiling fans
- lights (all equipped with flourescent bulbs)
We also have more or less stuck with the default EnergyStart thermostat settings for the geothermal, which means
Heating;
68 degrees from 6:30am to 8am and 5pm to 10pm
62 degrees at all other times
Cooling
78 degrees from 6:30am to 8am and 5pm to 10pm
85 degrees at all other times
The house itself is two stories and covers about 1800 square feet. As previous posts indicated, the house was also newly insulated with spray foam insulation in all exterior walls on both floors and 12″ of cellulose on the attic floor. Spray foam was not used along the roof line. We also had new double-pane Integrity windows installed throughout the house (more on those in another post). These insulating features have no doubt played a big role in keeping our energy bill down, too.
Unfortunately, we do not have any real points of comparison because the house did not have heat or air when we moved in.
